before the storm

Chapter 5: Before The Storm

The Albert estate had been taken over.

I stood in the middle of the main hall and tried to make myself smaller.

Racks of designer clothes lined every hallway. Seamstresses moved through the rooms like they owned them, pins between their teeth, measuring tapes around their necks. Two stylists were arguing in French near the staircase over fabric samples I couldn't name. Someone kept shouting about lighting in the east wing.

I had woken up to all of this.

Charles had knocked at seven, told me the designers had arrived, and left before I could ask a single question. Now I was standing here in yesterday's clothes watching strangers transform the house and I had no idea if I was supposed to be doing something. Picking something. Talking to someone.

So I pressed myself against the wall and stayed out of the way.

Maria was already in the thick of it. Moving between the racks like she'd been born doing this. Pulling pieces out, holding them up, dismissing them with a single look before moving to the next one. She knew every designer by name. She knew exactly what she wanted and she moved through the room like she owned it.

I watched her and felt the gap between us open up like a hole in the floor.

Then I saw the dress.

It was on a separate rack, slightly apart from everything else. Dark wine. Floor length. The kind of dress that didn't need anything else with it. No jewelry. No accessories. It just existed and made everything around it look like it was trying too hard.

I didn't move toward it. I just looked.

Maria saw it two seconds after I did.

She crossed the room, reached out and pulled it from the rack in one smooth motion. Held it up against herself and turned toward the mirror.

I watched her face change when she saw her reflection.

Then she flipped the price tag. Read the number.

The smile got wider.

She turned. "Mum." She held the dress up. "This one."

"Maria."

The voice came from above me.

I looked up.

All three of my brothers were at the top of the staircase. Alex with his arms crossed. Ryan leaning against the railing. James adjusting his cufflink. My father stood slightly behind them.

Alex came down first. His eyes went straight to the dress in Maria's hands and he crossed the room and took it from her without a word. Just lifted it out of her grip and walked it over to me.

"That one's not yours," he said to her. Then he held it out to me. "We had it pulled specifically. For you."

I stared at the dress.

"It's okay," I said quickly. "Really. Maria saw it first. She can have it, I genuinely don't mind—"

"Rose." Alex's voice wasn't harsh. But it wasn't moving either.

"There are so many other options and I—"

"Exactly," Ryan said, coming down the stairs. "Thousands of options. Maria can have her pick of any of them." He looked at me. "This one is yours."

I made myself stop arguing.

Maria hadn't moved. She was standing exactly where Alex had taken the dress from her. Her fingers were pressed together at her sides and her face was completely still.

"Of course." Her voice came out easy. Light. Like it cost her nothing at all. She waved her hand. "He's right. I don't even like it that much now that I'm looking at it again." She smiled at me. "Rose, take it. It'll look beautiful on you."

I smiled back.

But I kept watching her eyes.

My father touched my shoulder briefly before heading back upstairs. The designers descended on me immediately, pulling me toward the fitting area, talking over each other.

I let them move me.

Over their heads I watched Maria walk toward the staircase. Her back was straight. Her steps were even. Her hands were perfectly still at her sides.

She didn't look back.

I heard it twenty minutes later.

I was standing on a fitting platform getting pinned into something I couldn't name when the sound came from upstairs. A crash. Then another. Then another.

Nobody in the room reacted. The seamstress kept pinning. The stylist kept talking.

I stared at the ceiling and listened to the sound of something shattering above my head.

I didn't know what happened in that room.

Not then.

But I know now.

Maria stood in the middle of her bedroom floor with a broken vase at her feet and water spreading across the carpet and white lilies scattered everywhere. The dresser was completely empty. Everything that had been on it was on the floor in pieces.

Elena walked in, looked at all of it, and said one word.

"Stop."

"Did you see what happened down there?" Maria's voice was climbing. "Did you actually see it? I had that dress in my hands. I saw it first. I wanted it first and they just—" She laughed but it came out wrong. "They took it from my hands like I was nobody. Like I'm not even—"

"You're not."

Maria stopped.

Elena said it the same way she would say it's raining outside. Simple. Factual. She stepped over the broken glass without looking down and sat on the edge of the bed.

"You are my daughter," she said. "Not theirs. That is a fact that lives in this house whether anyone says it out loud or not. Which means you do not throw things. You do not make scenes. And you do not let them see you angry."

"She came in with nothing." Maria's voice dropped. Raw now. "Nothing. She was cleaning someone's floors last week. And now she has a trust fund and a gala and everyone in this house looking at her like she's—"

"I know."

"Then what are we doing?" Maria pressed. "Because I'm not standing here watching her take everything that was supposed to be mine."

Elena looked at her for a long moment.

Then she smiled. Small. Controlled.

"The gala is tomorrow night," she said. "Three hundred guests. Journalists. Cameras. Every family that matters watching every single thing that happens."

Maria waited.

"Rose has never been in a room like that in her life," Elena continued. "She doesn't know how to move in that world. She doesn't know who to speak to or what to say or how to hold herself under that kind of pressure." She tilted her head slightly. "All we have to do is make sure that shows."

Maria was quiet for a moment.

"How?"

Elena stood up, smoothed her dress, and looked at her daughter.

"Leave that to me," she said. "Your job tomorrow night is simple. Be kind to her. Be warm. Stay close."

"And?"

"And when it falls apart," Elena said, "make sure you're standing right next to her when it does."

She walked out.

Maria stood alone in the wreckage of her room.

And slowly, she started to smile.